Wednesday, May 23, 2012

File Sharing Between Laptops / Notebooks Via Access Point / Hotspot

When you need to share the files with friends, relatives, or anyone else, while you do not carry a USB flash disk or external hard drive, and also not possible to send the file via email because the file sizes are too big for example, the following solutions may be useful.

If you are in the area which has a hotspot/wifi then each notebook / laptop can connect to the hotspot, file sharing can be done through this hotspot.

In fact, many ways to share files between computers / laptops when there is no flashdisk or external drive, we can use bluetooth, ad hoc wireless connection, direct LAN cable, etc..

The benefit of using hotspot for file sharing is we do not have to set IP setting, pairing, etc.
What we have to do is only setting for folder sharing.

The assumption, connection between the laptops (with OS Windows 7) and the hotspot are successful,
Let say Laptop A and Laptop B. Laptop A will share the file/ folder, and laptop B will take the file from Laptop A

• The first step, specify the folder in laptop A to be shared
For example, here I will share the folder with the folder name "doc"
Right-click on the folder that will be shared ("Doc" folder), then select Properties Click on the picture to enlarge

On the Sharing tab, click Advanced Sharing

Give a tick on Share this folder, then click Apply / click OK

• The next step, disable / turn off Windows Firewall, (go to Control Panel, select the Windows firewall, switch off the Windows firewall)

• Then, in order of laptop B can retrieve files from laptop A, we have to know the IP address of Laptop A.

In Laptop A, Open The Command Prompt, from the Run menu (Windows Logo + R) type CMD, click OK